The greatest challenge the parents face during the toddler years is how to discipline a kid. Suggestions from everywhere regarding how to discipline are abundant, and each states it works the best. There are old school method, the modern, easy going method. Please bear in mind that however; hard you try to follow a particular method many of them may backfire. There is never the best way to discipline a child. Every child is unique in their personality. Even siblings differ in their way. Some are easy going while other being stubborn. The children learn control of impulse gradually. For a two-year-old, they will have temper tantrums. For a three years old it may even be pushing, quarrelling, hitting, being physical to get their way. They are trying to know their limits. The art of controlling the impulses is still a long road for them to walk. Simultaneously by showing his or her misbehaviour, they simply test your limits too.

To assess your own method of dealing with misbehaviour five basic rules to follow.

Observe what your child is doing wrong.

The circumstances when the misbehaviour occurs.

How often does this misbehaviour occur?

What is your response to the misbehaviour?

Is your reaction consistent or varies often?

The assessment will guide you to deal with each misbehaviour. It is up you to set what your limits are and decide your parenting style. Please be careful to be fairly consistent in whatever approach you have chosen. Otherwise, it confuses the kid.

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The incidence misbehaviour of happened to me in recent past. My daughter had developed a habit of spitting if she gets irritated or wants to have her way. The instant reaction at first was to scold her. Being a toddler; she did not understand it was something wrong. What she understood was this action of her had irritated me. She tested my limits. She did it a couple of time and every time I have scolded her. Being a strong willed girl; she now increased her frequency of spitting.

I could clearly see this method was a failure. It became more of a power struggle. The second method I adopted was to ignore. This approach is called Extinction technique: To ignore the misbehaviour of the kid systematically. The strategy worked for both of us, but not overnight. It had exuded from me a lot of patience and grit to stay put all these months. I have received glares from strangers and public admonishing from seniors as an overindulging parent. The process was slow tedious but fruitful at the end. It took a period of around 2 to 3 months to stop entirely. The first sign of the strategy working was the frequency of spitting reducing slowly. She understood this spitting business would not make her achieve what she wants. Gradually she forgot the spitting habit and even if she finds some other kids using the strategy she is not tempted to use it. One obvious reason is she knows it will not work with her parents. I have learnt a valuable lesson of parenting. The first being not to consider it as a power struggle. Second is patience with stubborn kids works wonders.

Researchers believe that there is after all truth in this rhymes. Kids do lie, and they start it quite early in their life. It is contrary to what we presume that kids tell the truth and this knowledge has been handed down from generations as a guiding tool. Please unlearn it as soon as possible and look into the what the child psychologist general have to say. The revelations are kind of interesting and logical.Here is my story which corroborated to the shocking revelation. When my preschooler daughter was on Skype speaking and chatting with her grandparents, she suddenly said in a serious note to his granddad “ Papa told me not to talk with you yesterday night.” He is angry with you and upset. Obviously, he was sad and bit taken aback. I was ashamed and told him I am unaware of any such conversation that has transpired between them. Later when my husband came back from office my question obvious question was”Did you say these to her last night?” His answer was simple NO. When he again asked my daughter she gave a more precise description when and where. At the time of going to bed, she stuck to it quite unfazed of lying. To grandparent, they believe children are innocent and never lie.

Naturally, I became worried ‘what if ‘any such lies crop up and how often do it happen and how to understand which one is truth and which is a lie. The answer to many of these after lot of research and keen observation is that there is no foolproof method. But many important things came to the forefront which I so blissfully unaware till now. The knowledge is an eye opener, and I would like to share with others:

Child learns to lie much earlier than we think they are capable of lying

Just the peek a boo game with your kid would ascertain that the child is capable of lying.If you find that the child is peeping or opening his/her eyes before counting 10 and denying doing so. However; innocent and harmless it is; the little one is capable of lying. In around two years, many of them would acknowledge that they are lying. It reduces as the age goes up. By fourth year they would come up with many stories to ascertain the lie. The false crying of the preschooler of hurting himself/ herself to gain your attention is on the periphery of lying.

Lying is related to Intelligence

Believe it or not, the child has reached a new cognitive developmental milestone. The scientific studies say those children who do not speak the truth early have the ability to construe a make believe the story. And which they know is a particular transgression from the reality. Thus the children social skills have had also developed along with cognitive skills. In my daughter’s case, she is the only grandchild of both maternal and paternal grandparents till now. Pampered by the grandparents and connoisseur of their eyes which she is well aware of. Thus to exploit their emotions are natural. So she perceives that she can have the power to control the emotions and enjoys doing it.

Children lie to avoid punishment

First the child does or say something which he/she should not. Then they are afraid of scolding and try to deny it. So to squirm out of the situation they lie. Even if the children says these lies or transgression from the reality; it is so obvious that we parents tend to ignore it. The signal that goes to the children at the is It’s ok to lie. A perfect example of it is: of you ask your child to close his/her eyes and you tell him/her that you are going to bring him/her some surprise present. As the toddler, he may hold it up for maybe a minute. It decreases drastically for a preschooler they will give into peeking much faster Now if you ask them whether they have peeked through because of the fear of punishment they will deny it. The examples of fear of punishment, however, mild the punishment maybe sends a strong signal. The other day my daughter broke her new set of crayons while colouring. She was on the floor colouring near my work table. I was working on my computer. I asked with a thick voice “did you break it again?” The answer shot at me was obviously “No I did not; it is already broken.” I knew the transgression and scolded her and threatened her that if she goes on breaking it she will not receive any crayons. One obvious thing I ignored was her lies and harped on the deed. So the signal was “It is okay to lie”. Now fast forward it to the same incident next week. She repeated the same thing of breaking some crayons while colouring. This time my approach was different. Instead of scolding and threatening; I assured her that I will not scold her and who has broken it. She did not look up and answered it was her done by her. She will not it do it again. The answer came back with a quite subdued demeanour, and it was an eye-opener for me.

Children cannot distinguish between a mistake and a lie

This can be explained by a simple example from day to day life which we encounter quite often. My husband was very busy working on his laptop. My daughter goes near him and tries to engage him in small talk. He was absent-minded and said it is quite late in the night, please go to sleep.” I promise you, we will be going to park tomorrow. “He forgot it was Thursday and still one more day to go for a weekend. Next day morning she gets up and says “Papa you have promised we will go to the park today” He tried to explain that he forgot that it was Friday and he would surely take her to park on Saturday. The simple interpretation of her was - Daddy lied. She started crying and accusing him of failing to keep the promise. So I could see she just failed to make any difference between mistake and lie. Dad has unwittingly given a message to his daughter that he condones lies. This can be not a significant problem for two years old as their memory is not yet so developed. As the child grows and their remembering power increases; just be a bit cautious although you cannot entirely negate it. But definitely, can reduce it.

​43Things : Positive parenting

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My friends and family call me Moon . My daughter call me Mom . I had the privilege to wear the hat of a banker , insurance professional , blogger, and a full time mom at different points in my life . While each of these hats has its own color and charm , the last one was the most fulfilling. It completed me as a person ! That's what inspired me to start the website wouldbemothers.com . So I take this opportunity to welcome you to this cozy corner of ours . It's like the proverbial banyan tree in India , where strangers meet to get transformed into friends ! Where all of us get accepted for what we are , without being bogged down by expectations . Join us in this amazing journey of friendship !

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The information contained in these topics is not intended nor implied to be a substitute for professional medical advice, it is provided for educational purposes only. You assume full responsibility for how you choose to use this information.Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider before starting any new treatment or discontinuing an existing treatment. Talk with your healthcare provider about any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.​Nothing contained in these topics is intended to be used for medical diagnosis or treatment.